The Nation: Spooked Spooks at the CIA

Dismissal by Xerox and unauthorized history

What's a spy to do when he gets fired? Some 200 CIA secret agents who have received pink slips in the first wave of a planned two-year cutback in covert personnel have been hitting the streets in search of jobs. But who really needs experts on secret information gathering, conspiracy and political subversion? "Hell, we are simply unemployable," complains one such agent. "No one will have us."

A number of the fired intelligence officers are fluent in difficult languages—Hindustani, Arabic, Japanese, and so forth—but colleges are reluctant...

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